RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 12 was off to a truly sickening start a few weeks ago—and then something actually sickening happened. Hours before Part 2 of the two-part premiere dropped, contestant Joey Gugliemelli (a.k.a. Sherry Pie) was accused of heinous deeds involving catfishing and coercing a lot of actors into doing humiliating physical and sexual acts on video under the false hopes of getting cast in a production. Gugliemelli owned up to the acts in a statement, saying that his time on Drag Race urged him to seek help. However, whether or not that’s true is disputable since Season 12 wrapped production in Summer 2019 and one allegation reported by NBC News claims he was still up to his tricks as of December 2019. It’s not a good look, at all, especially for a show that’s on an Emmy-winning streak and a season that was off to a truly strong start.

Now that two weeks have passed, we have a clearer idea of how Drag Race and production company World of Wonder are addressing this incredibly disturbing situation—especially since, as NBC reported, Sherry Pie makes it all the way to the final four.

Considering that they had mere hours to act ahead of an episode that was shot last year, World of Wonder made the right call before viewers met Gugliemelli as Sherry Pie on national TV. A disclaimer aired ahead of the March 6 episode and again before the March 13 episode (and presumably before every upcoming episode this season) telling viewers that Sherry Pie has been disqualified from the competition and will not take part in the finale episode taping in the Spring.

Photo: VH1, Sling TV

That’s not a spoiler, either, as the entire cast is traditionally present at the finale taping. What NBC claims is that not only has Gugliemelli’s invite to the taping been rescinded, she will no longer perform in the lip sync tournament that’s determined the winner for the past three seasons. World of Wonder and VH1 have not confirmed that Gugliemelli is in the final four.

Of course with no time to crank out a new edit, Gugliemelli’s first episode was full of Pie. Not only was his talking head all over the episode, he came very close to winning the first challenge (Jan was robbed of a spot in the top two!). Still, if you follow Drag Race on social media, you may’ve clocked that the catfish queen was scrubbed from existence. She’s not in the slideshow of looks from the premiere…

And Gugliemelli’s mentions in VH1’s original Drag Race recap web-series The Pit Stop amount to “… and also Sherry is there.”

A week later, we got to see how the fallout would affect not just easily-editable social media posts, but full episodes of Drag Race. With a week to prepare, Gugliemelli was practically erased from Episode 3, “World’s Worst.” After having possibly the most screentime of any queen in Episode 2, all of Gugliemelli’s talking heads were stricken from the episode and he maybe said two things outside of the improv challenge.

What’s wild, though, is that I—and presumably many other viewers!—didn’t even notice that Gugliemelli was missing. I finished Episode 3 still under the assumption that editors were going to have to scramble to re-edit the back half of the season, and I fully missed that the Drag Race editors got to work and made the changes starting with the episode I just watched. That’s craftsmanship that deserves applause, because it was truly unclockable… until Gugliemelli won the episode. His absence wasn’t felt until the moment he won, as usually the editors craft the episode’s storyline so that it builds to a win. And not only did he win the improv challenge, he won a $5,000 cash prize. To their credit, World of Wonder closed the episode with a note that the episode was taped in 2019 and that they’ve made a $5,000 donation to The Trevor Project.

But that out-of-nowhere win, one that felt wonky because Gugliemelli’s extracurricular actions have dictated that he be removed from Drag Race, is a sign of further steps that the show can and should take in order to keep this season running. For one thing, Gugliemelli shouldn’t win any further challenges—and you know he’s going to win more challenges if he does actually make it to the final four. But if the editors are working hard to remove his interviews and minimize his camera-time, they should not be afraid of going above and beyond to restructure episodes so that other queens win—even if the result is clunky! Drag Race fans are used to that! We all saw that way choppy All Stars 4 tie edit! But winners are made in the edit, and if Gugliemelli’s been edited out of the episode, he shouldn’t win episodes.

For example, instead of giving Gugliemelli the top spot in Episode 3, footage or a voiceover could’ve been added in post saying that since Sherry Pie has been disqualified (which we know from the disclaimer at the top of the episode), the week’s win instead goes to the more deserving Jackie Cox or Heidi Ho (née N. Closet).

Photo: VH1, Sling TV

Cancel the check to Gugliemelli, write one to a non-problematic queen, and also donate the same sum of money to charity. And this doesn’t even have to involve reshoots or RuPaul coming into work during the pandemic. I think we’d all be happy with, like, 10 seconds of selfie footage of a dolled up Shangela announcing the real winner of these now Sherry-less episodes while kicking it with Jenifer Lewis in quarantine. Don’t let Gugliemelli win. He’s already gotten away with enough for long enough.

Also, like, edit down her runway walks too, y’know?

The other hurdle is, of course, the finale. If Gugliemelli was slated to lip sync for the crown, Drag Race needs to notify a replacement queen ASAP. As in, whoever comes in fifth this season should immediately be notified to start prepping numbers, because they’re now in the top four. Give a deserving queen a shot!

This whole fiasco is a kerfuffle unlike anything Drag Race has seen before, and they’ve so far made all the right calls. The disqualification and can’t-miss-it disclaimer, re-editing the episodes, ignoring him on social media, and donating to charity have all been great moves. Season 12 will always have this shadow over it, but there’s still a lot of light to be seen in that cast. I just want it to shine as brightly as possible, and I don’t want to see an abuser win any more challenges.